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I can't help but think the pope is a demented old perv who is protected by his cabal of archbishops to maintain their own power. The pope must be at least early Alzheimer's now. I wonder if he has tertiary syphilis?

“In the 1970s, paedophilia was theorised as something fully in conformity with man and even with children,” the Pope said."

This is laughable.

What bothers me more than the catholic leadership's offenses, is the catholic populace's continued support of the nonsensical and corrupt institution.

Being fair, he probably thought it was something fully in conformity with men and children, seeing as he appears to have spent the latter half of the 20th century covering up sex acts inflicted by men on children. 'All the cool clergy were doing it', sort of thing. Given how insular the Vatican is, it's no wonder he thought it was commonly accepted.

My sense of it is that the Vatican/Catholicism is like a huge oil tanker, slow to maneuver. Over the last fifty years or so, social progress, science and communication have far outpaced and outmaneuvered it. It's losing Europe and the rest of the Western World. The Vatican would do better relocated to Tegucigalpa.

There's actually some explicit allowances for it, such as when the Israelites were allowed to keep the virgins of the peoples they destroyed. In that time and culture, for a girl to be a virgin likely meant that she was prepubescent, they only had to give them a few months then they could have their way with them.

shit will always be shit no matter if you mold it into an intricate statue or let it land as it fell. the pope is trying his darnedest to carve out some excuses from the mountain high pile the church is in. too bad for them victimizing children has a much higher outrage factor than when he does it to homosexuals and non-Christians.